John Voss
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jovo.design
John Voss
@jovo.design
Head of Product Design at Descript, cofounder of @queerdesign.club. Queering design, ethical tech, and dogs. Husband of @seldo.com. I write and speak, no matter how much people beg me to stop 🌎 jovo.design 📍SF / Sea Ranch
The eyecotpus is my favorite character. I’ve got an episode and a half to go. I hope it gets everything it wants.
November 9, 2025 at 7:53 PM
Yeah it beats the hell out of all the others.
November 6, 2025 at 2:21 PM
It’s a psoriasis med! I just started it!
November 6, 2025 at 4:57 AM
Respectfully… I need this group of friends from Wisconsin to shut the fuck up. Some of us were awake at 3am.
November 1, 2025 at 5:32 AM
Keep your fingers crossed that the cab arrives when it says and I make it to boarding.
November 1, 2025 at 4:14 AM
I would definitely take decolonial design reading recs though. I’ve watched some talks and read articles, but most of my reading on it has been in chapters of books on other topics (eg. ExtraBold or queer theory books).
October 31, 2025 at 10:34 PM
The fact that you and your wife matched made it even better.
October 31, 2025 at 10:31 PM
I think we’d also see a shift in weight between the isolated functions like component maintenance and the “glue” or regulatory functions like education and silo-bridging. I’ve found the “nervous-system-like” functions of my ds teams to be the most valuable.
October 31, 2025 at 10:25 PM
If we’re working in a framework in which it’s natural and beneficial for systems to expand and contract with their own seasonality, it frees you up to move between flexibility and governance when it makes sense without it feeling like a failure or shift in strategy. And you can plan for it.
October 31, 2025 at 10:22 PM
Yes! A future blog post at least. I think Urban Planning or Infrastructure are also potentially fruitful frameworks to think about.

One thing I think is consistent through many of them is growth → health and a vision of progress that is more cyclical/rhythmic than linear.
October 31, 2025 at 10:20 PM
Reposted by John Voss
We’ve made it way too easy for people to be horrible. Tim Cook giving a fascist an award should’ve been the end of Apple. Marc Benioff calling for thugs in the street should’ve been the end of Salesforce. A government not feeding its most vulnerable people should be the end of that government.
October 31, 2025 at 2:08 PM
Thank you. I’ve thought about it for sure. Maybe the response to this talk will be the thing that gets me over the initial hump.

(After I read all the books that were recommended to me at the after party!)
October 31, 2025 at 2:02 PM
Thank you so much for both the kind words and recommendations!
October 31, 2025 at 1:57 PM
Yeah might consider a separate one for them…
October 31, 2025 at 10:45 AM
One in particular I would be interested in digging into with the community is the way design systems follow the same patterns as the automation of labor and knowledge work in the 19th century—and our contribution to making design and engineering automatable now.
October 31, 2025 at 10:44 AM
Maybe more specifically ones you know are accepting submissions 😝
October 31, 2025 at 10:37 AM
It was great meeting and chatting. Thank you for your recommendations!
October 31, 2025 at 10:28 AM